Report: FBI Launched Petraeus Investigation in June

The New York Timesis reporting that the Tampa office of the FBI began its investigation into General David Petraeus in June. A month earlier, in May, Tampa resident Jill Kwaham Kelley, a friend of General Petraeus and an unpaid military liaison, brought threatening emails sent to her by Paula Broadwell. Broadwell, author of Petraeus’s biography as well as his mistress, turned over the emails to “a rank-and-file agent she knew from a previous encounter with the F.B.I. office . . . That agent, who had previously pursued a friendship with Ms. Kelley and sent her shirtless photographs of himself, was ‘just a conduit’ for the complaint,” according to an FBI spokesman.

By late summer, the FBI was monitoring General Petraues’s email accounts and knew that he was engaged in an extramarital affair. However, the existence of an investigation and its details were known only to the agents involved, senior FBI officials, and senior officials at the Department of Justice.

When the attack on the Benghazi mission took place on September 11, 2012, no one outside of that small group was aware of the CIA Director’s compromised position, nor did anyone in Congress learn of it until late in October.

On Monday, the Wall St. Journalreported the FBI agent who first brought the threatening emails to the agency’s attention was later barred from the case over concerns he was “personally involved.” The barred agent became suspicious that the agency was stonewalling the investigation to protect the Obama administration. He took his concerns to Congressman David Reichert (R-WA), who brought them to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). On October 31, Cantor reported them to FBI Director Robert Mueller.

According to the Wall St. Journal report, “[t]he agent is now under investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, the internal-affairs arm of the FBI, according to two officials familiar with the matter.”

A June 2010 photograph taken at a social event hosted by the Kelleys at their residence in Tampa shows (left to right) Natalie Khawam, (twin sister of Jill Khawam Kelley), General Petraeus, Dr. Scott Kelley, his wife Jill Khawam Kelley, and Holly Petraeus (wife of General Petraeus).